Ollie, right, rounds a corner at Gilbert House, a wing of Episcopal Church Home, September 17, 2010. He had an active morning and so then spent hours napping in residents' rooms. (This photo is taken after he napped for two hours under a chair in this room.) Molly Guthrey story to run ?
(Pioneer Press: Jean Pieri)

Ollies food and litter box and pet grass are under a desk by a file cabinet in the nurses station area at Gilbert House, a wing of Episcopal Church Home, September 17, 2010. Molly Guthrey story to run ?
(Pioneer Press: Jean Pieri)

With Ollie in her arms, Rebekah Taylor, the Household Coordinator at Gilbert House, sings a closing hymn in the chapel of Gilbert House, a wing of Episcopal Church Home, September 17, 2010. Molly Guthrey story to run ?
(Pioneer Press: Jean Pieri)

Ollie the cat flicks in and out of the nursing home chapel as residents intone prayers for their dead.

Edward.

Walter.

Susie.

“May we end our lives with faith and hope, and without suffering.”

Ollie has done his part. He’s developed a reputation at Episcopal Church Home for sitting with residents as they die.

The cat is the official pet of Gilbert House, a unit on the second-floor of the St. Paul facility. Since he arrived last November, he has been in attendance at several deaths.

Another death-predicting cat made headlines in 2007, when the New England Journal of Medicine published Dr. David Dosa’s essay about Oscar, a cat who lives in a nursing home in Rhode Island. The media blitz that followed led the geriatrician to write a best-selling book, “Making Rounds With Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat.” Oscar’s 15 minutes continues, with a movie in the works.

“The media had a lot of fun with Oscar, lots of wonderful headlines like ‘If Oscar’s on your bed, you’re dead,’ but that’s not the story,” Dosa said. “The story is that this animal is there for people at the end of life.”

Dosa was not surprised to hear about Ollie.

“I think there are a lot of other ‘Oscars’ out there,” he said. “You only need to talk to hospice providers to know that animals have the perceptive ability to do this — not every animal can do it, but I do think there are those that are capable of doing it.”

Those who know Ollie do not consider him a grim reaper.

“It’s more like a home, with him here,” said resident Carolyn Leyk.

SECOND CHANCES

Gilbert House is the home Ollie needed.

Marie Louderback, a Shoreview veterinarian who works with several pet-rescue organizations and recently formed one of her own, had been looking for a cat she could place in a nursing home when she got the call about Ollie.

“He belonged to a military family who was being shipped out west,” Louderback said. “They brought him to my office, and I did an ‘interview’ with him. He was just awesome. He let me pet him and roll him over. He was very relaxed even though he was in a new environment — and it was a veterinarian’s office.”

It helped that 5-year-old Ollie is large — 13 pounds — yellow and male.

“Big yellow boys are known to be the friendliest cats,” Louderback said.

The vet’s nursing home contacts were not as friendly, though, when she pitched the idea behind her venture, 3 Pound Cats Therapy Services — a matchmaking operation for surrendered cats needing a home and long-term-care facilities wanting a pet.

“They were familiar with visiting animals, like therapy dogs, but to make one a pet … I got a lot of, ‘We’ll think about it,’ or ‘No, we don’t think so,’ ” said the vet, who charges $1,000 a year to provide regular house calls, food, immunizations and other cat-keeping services to facilities.

“Episcopal Homes was the first one to say, ‘Yes, we were thinking of getting a cat,’ ” Louderback said.

The St. Paul facility is part of a nursing home trend that replaces the traditional hospital model with something that feels more like a private home.

“It’s interesting, 10 years ago, an animal in a nursing home or a place of healing was counterintuitive — we didn’t do it,” Dosa said. “Places of healing were meant to be sterile, bleached places where there is no life. The reality is people do better when they are around comforts of home, and one of the biggest comforts is that of an animal. There’s good research that even patients with dementia are less agitated and depressed if animals are about. Not necessarily therapy animals, just an animal.”

Ollie was 3 Pound Cats’ first placement. He arrived at Gilbert House on Nov. 4. Nine days later, the cat waited and repeatedly scratched at a dividing door to get to a unit where a resident lay dying.

A PEACEFUL WATCHING

Rebekah Taylor, an Episcopal sister, was sitting with that dying woman on the afternoon of Nov. 13 when Ollie showed up.

“We were praying the ‘Our Father’ when he came into the room,” Taylor said. “He sat at the foot of the bed and just watched us, like a sphinx. It did not feel creepy to me. It was a very peaceful, still watching.”

“He was in the very last part of his life — we knew we were very close — and Ollie had been in and out of his room for the previous couple of days,” Keller said. “I think people knew why that cat was there. He was there because he knew whatever it is that animals know. Pets have a sense about things. They watch over people at certain times.

“Dad died at 11:20 p.m., and it was afterward that we noticed Ollie sitting on a chair next to him,” Keller said. “I took a photo of the cat about an hour later, at 12:43 a.m., and I can tell right now from looking at the angle that he is looking at the bed where my father was laying.”

Resident Gonso Carlson doesn’t fear her own turn with Ollie.

“I wish he would come into my room,” said the 97-year-old, who suffered a stroke recently. “I want to die, especially since I’ve been sick, because I know I’ll be in a better place.”

Taylor, the household coordinator for Gilbert House, has seen Ollie there for the residents at other times, too, like when someone is sad.

“He’s aware of the neediest residents — I see some solicitousness on his part,” she said. “I just feel like he’s really in tune with us. As human beings, we build up barriers to spiritual things; our vision is clouded. But for Ollie, all that is between him and God is a screen door.”

‘A REGULAR, ORDINARY CAT’

At Gilbert House, Ollie likes to nap on a pile of afghans in the chapel. He dozes by the fireplace. He’ll stop by residents’ rooms, hopping into their windowsills to watch the activity at birdfeeders. He also keeps the staff company, accompanying them on rounds at night.

“He’s just a regular, ordinary cat,” said Wendy Green-Kufuor, a nurse who is fond of Ollie. “He does seem to go into rooms where someone is dying, but he’s got other rooms he goes into, too.”

Earlier this year, Ollie caught the attention of Richard Thomas, an intuitive healer and shaman who accompanied his roommate, Amy Brodt Powell, to Gilbert House to facilitate communication between Powell and her dying mother. Thomas met Ollie during their visit and, because he also describes himself as a pet psychic, he said he knew of the cat’s abilities.

“The cat carries the light of the God force — this is why Ollie does what he does,” Thomas said. “He goes with the dying people, he holds the light to assist them in crossing over.”

So Thomas asked for the cat’s help.

“As we were leaving, I saw Ollie lying on a table,” Thomas said. “I stopped and said, ‘Ollie, you know what you have to do.’ He looked at me with a twinkle in his eye, and that was it.”

The cat was found in the elderly woman’s closet after her death.

MANY THEORIES

In the cases of Oscar and Ollie, there are similarities:

Other than vigils, the cats typically don’t spend long stretches in the rooms of individual residents.

The cats are laser focused when they are on vigil.

The cats prefer to sit near the dying person, on the bed or in a nearby chair (the closet vigil occurred just once).

The cats lose interest after the death.

But can a cat really know someone is about to die? Do cats even know what death is?

“What is the cat’s motivation? We don’t know — we can only look at their behavior,” said Paula Zukoff, behavior and training manager at the Animal Humane Society. “It’s nice to think that the cat is ‘there’ for that person, a spiritual link, because animals and people have lived together for so long. But, perhaps unconsciously, people might be petting the cat more or talking to the cat more, giving the cat more attention when it is ‘on the job.’ To a cat, that would be highly rewarding.”

Dosa addresses the ‘whys’ in his book.

“I asked Oscar, but he’s not telling,” Dosa said. “Cells, when they are in a starvation or dying state, release ketones, a very sweet chemical. Can the cat smell it? Why does he care about that? Why does he repeatedly come to it?

“I’ve certainly heard every theory — he’s one of God’s angels, come to guide souls to heaven, as well as the reverse, it’s the devil’s work, or he’s a carnivore, looking for his next meal,” he said. “There are many ideas, lots of explanations.

“But what matters in the end is not why he does it — but that he does it.”

Molly Guthrey can be reached at 651-228-5505.

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